ABSTRACT
In 1954 the International Folk Music Council decreed that the music they had decided to study was: the product of a musical tradition that has been evolved through the process of oral transmission. Different styles and contexts produce chains of images, all of which work on the basis of shifts and progressions. Skiffle, in particular, was a process of unburdening - both musically and culturally it represented a tension inherent in British society based upon, on the one hand, small gestures of freedom and, on the other, social conformity. Despite the almost congenital antipathy displayed by folk's deep-seated political philosophies, via skiffle, a pop aesthetic permeated the folk revival. By 1969 Tim Hart was one of a vanguard of folk musicians, nurtured on rock and skiffle, who questioned the assumptions of the revival. Hart and Maddy Prior, like others, were very conscious of not becoming part of a folk meritocracy.
